SXSW 2025 Review: SWEETNESS, Deceptively Sour, Completely Unhinged

Love to love you, baby. But you're no good.

Sweetness
The film enjoyed its world premiere at SXSW 2025. It screens once more at Alamo Lamar tomorrow, March 14.

High school was awful.

Oh, maybe you plucked some good memories out of the experience, but for most of us, the final years of our obligatory education in the U.S. school system was suffocating and intolerable. No one else could possibly understand, unless you too were bullied and belittled, every stinking school day.

Yet, Rylee persists. As captured by Kate Hallett in a brilliant, unnerving performance, Rylee is 16 on the cusp of 39, short in stature yet mighty in will, as she demonstrates when she survives the absolute worst vehicular meet-cute in movie history.

Smashed in a parking lot by a drug-intoxicated Payton (Herman Tømmeraas), who just happens to be the dreamiest rock star in the universe, Rylee bounces up from the pavement and into his sports car, imaging that their encounter will become the stuff of her dreams. Instead, it becomes the launchpad for a series of nightmares.

Earlier in the day, Rylee and her best friend Sidney (Aya Furukawa) commisserated with each other about the absolute garbage they had to endure from fellow students. Neither has a happy home life, especially since Rylee lost her mom and must live with her still mourning and eternally stoic cop dad (Justin Chatwin), who struggles to find even a single word to say to her, instead grunting and grumbling.

Rylee and Sidney found solace by attending a rock concert by their favorite band, led by singer Payton, the aforementioned dreamy one. Rylee has an incredible adolescent crush on Payton, the kind of crush that ignores harsh reality and fantasizes eternal bliss.

Or so it seems. She quickly tears down her girlish facade when she sees beyond Payton's rock-star exterior to discover that rumors about his past drug addiction were true. Sadly, however, he has fallen back into his addictive habits.

Because Rylee cannot reconcile his reality and her fantasy, she decides she must do something to help Payton. Whether he wants her help or not is besides the point, in Rylee's mind. She is compelled to take action, perhaps hoping to save Payton, as she could not save her own beloved mother.

Written and directed by Emma Higgins, Sweetness is strikingly shot by cinematographer Mat Barkley, likely reflecting Higgins' experience in helming music videos for a variety of artists. As you'd expect from a music video director, the film looks uniquely stylish and is filled with all sorts of imaginative production design by Electa Porado, which drives home the ordinary suburban surroundings that disguise the unsettling story unfolding behind pretty curtains and solid wood doors.

Kate Hallett and Ayo Furukawa have great chemistry as friends who are devoted to each other, which makes their actions more comprehensible. Herman Tømmeraas is convincing as both a rock star and an addict.

Fierce is the most fitting description for Kate Hallet's impersonation of the wildly determined Rylee and for the movie as a whole. Sweetness turns surprisingly sour at times, yet retains sweetness at its core. At least, when it's not completely unhinged, which is most of the time.